VALA2014 – Matt Finch – The Book of the World: crossing boundaries in culture and outreach

http://matthewfinch.me.
Was impressed by librarians response after Christchurchs quake. Librarians were engagin in the community.
Library activities for children and young people don't have to cost the earth and as libraries become hubs for all kinds of exciting media activity and they needn't always be bookish either. (quote from a forthcoming book)
Zombie event they have run - teens get attacked, but they are not alone, it is not digital. They are in the middle of a story where the end has not been determined. Was a great collaboration between a range of services as well as the locals.
Libraries have always done this because we are the portal for people to step into all the stories that have been created.
Libraries are a one stop shop to the universe. Try to track down the script Book of theworld - unpublished Dr Who script from 2007 episode 6.01 by Lawrence Miles in 2007. Mustread.
Books in the library can take your mind anywhere in time and space.
Librarians are guides because we know the terrain better than our users, which makes us Time Lords. Not preachers converting or teachers who are preparing you for a career. He loves librarians because we offer inspiration - thinks our profession is heroic.
The shelves were supposed to be loaded with books, but were loaded with doors.
Author Connor Thomas wrote an article - a very quiet battle: librarians, publishers and the Pirate Bay. Worrying implications. Matt boggled. Interviewed and debated him about this. Chris _ if you have one or two central spaces for books and ideas in a city all the energy flows through those spaces and it has a catalysing effect.
There is a tension between outreach and control for libraries (image of the hub).
Talked about Cory Doctorow and his closed visit to SLV. Could have done events in the suburbs and beamed it back - made it more Makerspace.
British Museum did Hitchcock events in the area he came from. Awesome.
Tension is between prestige and outreach. How can we make a difference to the individual who can not get into the library?
Unfortunately we have the tension of governance restrictions - eg. IT blocks, publicity. Can have external partners want to join us, eg. News type report of zombie run - see video on YouTube. (in Parkes)
Regardless of where you are born to, you deserve the best possible access to information.
Likes maker spaces because he hates 3D printers. Maker spaces can open the door to discussion. Libraries can become centres of creation and in getting content out there.
It's the little barriers that can change our future in a negative way. Need to be building relationships with local politics and local media.
Go back and trade the hub for the periphery, solve the little problems and go out. Go into the communities which are most in need.

Categories

Archives

Day 3 – Thursday 14th February 2019 Revitalising first nations languages: keeping culture strong in the digital world – Terry Janke Estimate that there are only 20 Indigenous languages being used in every day speech. 90% of languages are endangered and because they are an oral race, there is limits to what is written […]

Day 2 – Wednesday 13th February 2019 Connecting with users and enriching the library experience in the digital age – Carla Hayden (Librarian of Congress) The importance of reading can not be underplayed. In USA history, African Americans who learnt to read were severely punished, as were the people who taught them to read. “Palaces […]

Day 1 – Tuesday 12 February 2019 Genevieve Bell – Wonder in the age of AI: art, creativity and possibility SIRAC, the first computer stored memory, began its life at Sydney, but then most of its life at Melbourne University. It taught an entire generation about computers and it was used to process data about […]

And finally – great finish to a great conference. ————————————————————– Keynote 5 – The C Equation: Content + Connection + Community = Contented Customers – David Lee King Content – libraries have traditional forms of content, but also more cutting-edge forms. Some examples are ukuleles for loan, guitars, electronic EDM devices, checking things out to […]

And here are my notes from Day 2 – not including of course, the presentation that I gave with my manager Daniel Lewis. ————————————————————————————– VALA Conference 2018 – Wednesday 13 February Plenary 3 – Linked Data Liminality – Matt Miller Matt is a Metadata Librarian, programmer/developer, adjutant at a library school, worked in public and […]

Wow, it’s been two years since I posted here. How do I know? My last posts were about VALA 2016. And now I am back with my VALA 2018 notes. I must post here more often. 🙂 Anyway, it was another great conference and it was my honour to be on the program committee to […]

On Day Three I both chaired a session and presented in another, so there are less notes, but I hope you still find them helpful/useful. The museum as startup – Nancy Proctor (Baltimore Museum of Art) Startup – human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty – […]

Building a Framework for Semantic Cultural Heritage Data – Valentine Charles Valentine works with the Europeana Foundation, which is the central portal for cultural heritage in Europe. Europeana has a huge range of items from European countries, including content from and related to Australia. The European Library was the model on which Europeana was based, […]

Always take away great thoughts and ideas from VALA – here’s what I got from Day 1. Librarianship: saving the world one community at a time – Dr R David Lankes Technology advances have made the world a smaller place. Expectmorelibrary.com. Not all is well in the world and librarians have a part to […]

I was fortunate enough to attend the most recent of these annual events, with guest speaker Marianne Broadbent. She was a very thought provoking speaker. Hope you get as much out of my notes as I did from attending the session. Marianne Broadbent – Implementing 21st Leadership at Multiple Levels Good skills to have are […]